Pacific Theater

On this day, Japanese troops land in Hong Kong and a slaughter ensues. A week of air raids over Hong Kong, a British crown colony, was followed up on December 17 with a visit paid by Japanese envoys to Sir Mark Young, the British governor of Hong Kong. The envoys’ message was ...read more

At 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time, a Japanese dive bomber bearing the red symbol of the Rising Sun of Japan on its wings appears out of the clouds above the island of Oahu. A swarm of 360 Japanese warplanes followed, descending on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in a ferocious ...read more

When Japanese bombers appeared in the skies over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941, the U.S. military was completely unprepared for the devastating surprise attack, which dramatically altered the course of World War II, especially in the Pacific theater. But there ...read more

About 7:45 a.m., through the crackle and buzz of interference, gunnery and anti-aircraft officer Benny Mott was jolted by pilots’ voices rising with alarm over the radio transmitter aboard the USSEnterprise. They were shouting to one another. “Hey, did you see that army plane ...read more

On February 23, 1945, Hershel “Woody” Williams crawled toward a string of Japanese guard posts with a 70-pound flamethrower strapped to his back. His Marine Corps unit had suffered heavy casualties since arriving on the island of Iwo Jima a few days earlier and had now become ...read more

In August 2017, researchers announced they had found one of history’s most significant—and sought-after—shipwrecks. More than 72 years after it sank in July 1945, the final resting place of USS Indianapolis has been discovered in the Pacific Ocean. But the heavy cruiser isn’t ...read more

1. Samuel Fuqua Missouri-born Samuel Fuqua had a front row seat to the devastation at Peal Harbor from aboard USS Arizona, a battleship that was heavily bombed during the first wave of the attack. The 42-year-old lieutenant commander was having breakfast when the ship’s air raid ...read more

In the spring of 1945, U.S. troops in the Pacific were nearing the final stages of their “island-hopping” campaign, a strategy designed to capture smaller islands in the Pacific and set up military bases in preparation for an invasion of Japan. Though the campaign was proving ...read more

The demise of USS Oklahoma took mere moments. Less than 15 minutes after the first Japanese bombs and torpedoes tore into it on December 7, 1941, the gray battleship had rolled over, its masts touching the murky bottom of Pearl Harbor and its capsized keel exposed above the ...read more

World War II couldn’t destroy USS Independence. The light aircraft carrier survived three years of frantic combat in the Pacific Theater, where it weathered torpedo damage from enemy bombers and dueled with one of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s most fearsome warships. Neither could ...read more

One of the costliest battles of World War II began on September 15, 1944, when U.S. Marines landed on Peleliu, a volcanic island in the western Pacific ocean measuring only 6 miles long and 2 miles across. General Douglas MacArthur had pushed for the amphibious attack on the ...read more

By the time they splashed their way onto its southeastern beach on February 19, 1945, many of the U.S. Marine invasion force wondered if there were any Japanese left alive on Iwo Jima. Allied aircraft, battleships and cruisers had spent the previous two and a half months ...read more

Chester W. Nimitz graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1905 and served as chief of staff to the commander of the U.S. Atlantic submarine force during the First World War. By 1939, he had risen to become chief of the Navy’s Bureau of Navigation. After the bombing ...read more

Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, most American servicemen had never seen a plane like the “Zero,” so named not because of the prominent Rising Sun emblem painted on the side but for the manufacturer’s type designation: Mitsubishi 6M2 Type 0 Model 21. Those servicemen ...read more

Adventure in a Tropical Paradise
To an Army or Navy nurse serving in the early 1940s, Manila must have looked like a bit of heaven on earth. The island posting offered palm trees, fine accommodations and few patients to attend. With plenty of free time, the nurses enjoyed golf, ...read more

1. Twenty-three sets of brothers died aboard USS Arizona.
There were 37 confirmed pairs or trios of brothers assigned to USS Arizona on December 7, 1941. Of these 77 men, 62 were killed, and 23 sets of brothers died. Only one full set of brothers, Kenneth and Russell Warriner, ...read more

Born in 1905 in North Platte, Nebraska, Albert Neir Brown was enrolled in ROTC during high school and while attending dental school. Called to active duty in 1937, he reported to Minneapolis’ Fort Snelling, leaving behind his wife, his three children and his practice. In 1941 ...read more

On this day in 1943, a Japanese destroyer rams an American PT (patrol torpedo) boat, No. 109, slicing it in two. The destruction is so massive other American PT boats in the area assume the crew is dead. Two crewmen were, in fact, killed, but 11 survived, including Lt. John F. ...read more

On June 7, 1942, the Battle of Midway–one of the most decisive U.S. victories in its war against Japan–comes to an end. In the four-day sea and air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers with the loss of only one of its ...read more

In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals for the Far East begins hearing the case against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II. On November 4, 1948, the trial ended with 25 of ...read more

After advancing island by island across the Pacific Ocean, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur wades ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte, fulfilling his promise to return to the area he was forced to flee in 1942. The son of an American Civil War hero, MacArthur served as chief ...read more

On March 10, 1945, 300 American bombers continue to drop almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries on Tokyo, Japan, in a mission that had begun the previous day. The attack destroyed large portions of the Japanese capital and killed 100,000 civilians. In the closing months of the war, ...read more

An international war crimes tribunal in Tokyo passes death sentences on seven Japanese military and government officials, including General Hideki Tojo, who served as premier of Japan from 1941 to 1944. Eight days before, the trial ended after 30 months with all 25 Japanese ...read more

In one of the greatest defeats in British military history, Britain’s supposedly impregnable Singapore fortress surrenders to Japanese forces after a weeklong siege. More than 60,000 British, Australian, and Indian soldiers were taken prisoner, joining 70,000 other Allied ...read more